A photographer’s goal is to capture light. Underwater, light is absorbed with long wavelengths like red being pretty much absent below 4-5 meters (12-15 feet). Hence, in order to restore color to our pictures, we need to use lights or flashes.

Flashes, often known colloquially as strobes, provide a very quick, powerful burst of light. This helps penetrate through the water and allows photographers to use appropriate apertures and shutter speeds.

Given how important lighting is, we are currently in a fortunate period where there are several manufacturers that have decided to either produce new strobes, or to substantially revise existing ones. This trend is set to continue, with rumors of several other new models being planned in the immediate future swirling around too. Certainly, we seem to be slightly spoilt for choice!

Wetpixel is very fortunate to have the support of Takuya Tori of Inon, Peter Mooney of ScubaPix, Leo Grower of Ocean Leisure Cameras who all kindly supplied the strobes that were reviewed. The team from Emperor Divers, Marsa Alam, hosted the reviewer and provided wonderful photographic opportunities.

The images that show performance are reproduced with little or no editing beyond the Lightroom RAW conversion process.

FTTC Disclosure

The strobes used for this review were loaned for the purpose of the review.

1. Introduction.
2. Strobe Fundamentals.
3. Inon Z330.
4. Retra Flash.
5. Symbiosis SS2.
6. Test results and conclusion.